Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Rainer

It's also one of the best books about German nightfighters: the men, the waepons, the tactics, and the technology. Very good reading.

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

As I recall, Japanese intel was very concerned that in the event of a war with Britain and other European colonial states, and with the US neutral and thus free to arm and build up the Phillippines into a really unbreakable salient intruding on Japanese interior lines, that the US would make a "Lend Lease" arrangement that would simply put much of Borneo, New Guinea, and southeastern Indonesia out of reach of Japan absent an attack on the United States.

In that regard I think the Japanese assessment was correct. I have no doubt that Roosevelt would have found a way to make Balikpapan a US-Managed asset and officially "neutral ground." The more time the Japanese would have spent messing around not attacking the US, the less likely Japan would have been to successfully conclude operations in southern waters.

The other thing is that I can't see Japan developing, in any realistic time frame, any logistical capability for waging even a low-intensity war in Siberia unless they abandoned their effort in China. And even then, China, for all it's relatively low state of economic development (w/ respect to infrastructure) was substantially more developed than eastern and southeastern Siberia. The idea of Japan developing resources in Siberia (absent the giant labor pool of China, and absent any decent logistical infrastructure) within the time frame of WW2 seems very improbable. At least to me.

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom
Yes the japs got handed their *&^ in 38-39 because the russians had their best troops there by 41 the russians were being strained by the germans i just wonder if a jap attack in siberia would have been the straw that broke the camels back.

Why do people always assume that the Soviet Union was "on the verge of collapse" and "one more push" would somehow brought it on.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
Why do people always assume that the Soviet Union was "on the verge of collapse" and "one more push" would somehow brought it on. The were in far better shape than Germany was in the Spring of 1944, and even with the successful Invasion of France, the loss of most of Italy, and the Destruction of Army Group Center, the German's dragged the war out another year.

ORIGINAL: spence

Why do people always assume that the Soviet Union was "on the verge of collapse" and "one more push" would somehow brought it on.

Because das ist vas der Fuhrer sprecht und ve all know der Fuhrer ist niematz mistaken.[:D]

Bad English speaking Kraut!

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom
Yes the japs got handed their *&^ in 38-39 because the russians had their best troops there by 41 the russians were being strained by the germans i just wonder if a jap attack in siberia would have been the straw that broke the camels back.

Actually the casualties were suprisingly even in these encounters..., but the Japanese felt they had been beaten. The big problem revealed was that it took most of the Manchurian Army's transport to support a reinforced Division at Kalkin Gol. The simply didn't have the infastructure to support a major incursion into Siberia. They might have taken Vladivostok, but they couldn't support a move West in reality..., and they would have had to go a long way West to get anywhere that mattered.

Why do people always assume that the Soviet Union was "on the verge of collapse" and "one more push" would somehow brought it on. The were in far better shape than Germany was in the Spring of 1944, and even with the successful Invasion of France, the loss of most of Italy, and the Destruction of Army Group Center, the German's dragged the war out another year.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom
Yes the japs got handed their *&^ in 38-39 because the russians had their best troops there by 41 the russians were being strained by the germans i just wonder if a jap attack in siberia would have been the straw that broke the camels back.

Actually the casualties were suprisingly even in these encounters..., but the Japanese felt they had been beaten. The big problem revealed was that it took most of the Manchurian Army's transport to support a reinforced Division at Kalkin Gol. The simply didn't have the infastructure to support a major incursion into Siberia. They might have taken Vladivostok, but they couldn't support a move West in reality..., and they would have had to go a long way West to get anywhere that mattered.

Why do people always assume that the Soviet Union was "on the verge of collapse" and "one more push" would somehow brought it on. The were in far better shape than Germany was in the Spring of 1944, and even with the successful Invasion of France, the loss of most of Italy, and the Destruction of Army Group Center, the German's dragged the war out another year.

Stalin was very worried over it. Of course, he thought he was going to be arrested and deposed shortly after the first German offensive began. It took him several days to snap out of it and get going. Maybe it was that sense of precariousness that leads to that 'conventional wisdom' about an invasion from the east?

ORIGINAL: spence

Bad English speaking Kraut!

Non German speaking Yankee Doodle[;)]

ORIGINAL: trollelite

...If with corsair even morons can win battle, then the game is dead. 

ORIGINAL: Historiker

There were also two peace offers to Germany by Stalin, both delivered by Bulgaria. One shortly after the war began, another when the German troops got close to Moskau. In both offers he was willed to give Germany a massive amount of territory...